They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Southern Poverty Law Center: Rise in Militia Groups

Of course, there are no real principled reasons for this trend, and the constitutionality of such groups are never mentioned. The real reason is - get ready for a shock - a black man is president:

A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man.

Nowhere in this ridiculous document is the horrific growth of government, massive increases in taxes, or grotesque abuses of civil liberties mentioned. It mentions one man in Pensacola, Florida, who warns of FEMA camps and cheap, plastic coffins to be used when the government declares martial law and rounds up dissenters. It never clarifies that there are, in fact, many camps that have been built in the United States, under the guise of rounding up and detaining illegal aliens. These camps of course remain empty, and of course we know the government has no intention of doing anything with illegal aliens, except to allow them to roam free. It never clarifies that the CDC did indeed purchase half a million plastic coffins, or that the possibility of martial law is openly discussed in mainstream news. These concerns, founded or unfounded, of course, have nothing to do with a black man being president. Numerous examples are given of militia speeches and movements, and numerous times the SPLC mentioned they are motivated by race, but not one example of speech or actions involving race are mentioned. Not one. Several isolated incidents are cited, but no tie is established between these incidents and any established militia group.

Incredibly, the group Oath Keepers is especially castigated for mustering in Lexington, Massachussetts on April 19, the date and the site of the opening shots of the Revolutionary War, to reaffirm their pledge to defend the U.S. Constitution. Because the Waco incident and the Oklahoma City bombing also took place on the 19th of April, Oath Keepers is spuriously tied to these events, despite the obvious reason for the date chosen. No member statements, official documents, or member acts are cited to show a link between the group and the events in Wavo and Oklahoma City, yet we are to be led to believe that, because these events are supposedly "seminal events in the lore of the extreme right, in particular the antigovernment Patriot movement," the date chosen had a meaning more significant than the opening shots of the American Revolution. We are truly living in bizzarre times when a group of law enforcement agents and soldiers committed to upholding their oath to the Constitution is portrayed as something to be feared, "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival," according to the report.

Members vow to fulfill the oaths to the Constitution that they swore while in the military or law enforcement. "Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and we will not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders," the group says.

The horror.

It's almost laughable that the SPLC is oblivious to how absurd and ridiculous they sound, fear-mongering over a group solely committed to upholding their oaths to the obey and protect the Constitution. The SPLC is obviously a shill for the State, never addressing legitimate concerns militia and patriot groups have about government power, never questioning the omnipotence of the State. Yet its report recieves fawning, completely un-critical coverage in the press, never challenging the blatant, obvious fallicies in the report. But you already knew the MSM is nothing more than the government's ministry of propaganda.

This report is a joke - poorly written, and even more poorly researched, most likely due to the fact that there is little in the way of actual facts to support their contentions, that militias are on the rise due to the fact that a "black" man is President, and that these groups represent a threat to everyday Americans. These militiamen are everyday Americans, fed up with the incremental usurping of power by the State, the vicious attack by the State on our civil rights, and the ill omens of what's to come, which we see not based on paranoia, but on a clear understanding of history. But to the SPLC, whatever the State does is good, and whoever opposes it is bad, dangerous, and, of course, racist.

***UPDATE***

So-called "conservative" Fox News picks up on this report, showing little if any real scrutiny of its claims.